You light the spark in my bonfire heart
by MaidenStar
Summary: "What are the odds of finding someone who can finish your sentences, who will keep every secret and save every letter?" Everyone has an origins story, and they are no different. They simply choose to share the abridged version with the rest of the world.


**Based shamelessly on Phil Kaye and Sarah Kay's 'An Origin Story', and on the song Bonfire Heart. Anything recognisable, therefore, comes from them and not me. **

**As always feedback is very much appreciated!**

* * *

_People like us, we don't need that much.  
__Just someone that starts the spark in our bonfire hearts._

"So," Skye said out of nowhere, a single syllable that broke the silence that had descended as they ate breakfast. "Am I ever gonna find out how you two met?"

Fitz glanced up from his toast, startled, and his eyes quickly found Simmons's. This question was one they were asked a lot, often along with: _'so are you two dating?'_,_ 'married?' _or _'does one of you want to date the other but is scared you might ruin your friendship?'_

"Oh, we met at the Academy, in our second semester," Jemma shrugged. "We barely crossed paths in the first few months there, but had a lot of rotations and classes together during second term," she said simply, pouring milk into her tea and taking a sip. "We were both the youngest there, both from Britain, it was natural that we'd get to know each other."

This response was as common as the question that prompted it.

"Really? There's not some super cool story about how you two became friends?" Skye exclaimed disbelievingly. "Come on I want to know!" she insisted with a grin and Fitz shrugged.

The truth was, that _was_ the truth. There was no big story, no scene right out of a romantic comedy where they accidentally ran into each other as they hurried to class and he spilled her coffee only to buy her a new one the next day. They simply saw each other standing outside a classroom one morning.

"She's right Skye, we were both in the same year at the Academy and we just met one day before a lecture."

"Oh come on, that can't be all there is!" Skye pressed, stirring an obscene amount of sugar into her coffee, but FitzSimmons were equally insistent.

Because, honestly, it was easier to simply say that they met outside class one morning than it was to say that, really, it all started with a sweater. The kind of sweater is of little consequence now, not least because for Fitz, it was the comfiest, nicest sweater in the world. For Simmons, it was the ugliest sweater she had ever seen.

It started on the first day of their second semester, as everyone waited to enter their very first lecture with the famous Dr. Leonardi, a well-known name in the field of Chemical Engineering. Fitz was wearing his favourite jumper, trying to look smart and make a good impression with his new classmates when he noticed her standing a few feet away. She was engaged in some small-talk, blushing furiously as she spoke to a guy that had to be five or six years older than her, but otherwise kept herself slightly apart from everyone else. For his part he had spoken to no one at all, looking down at his battered trainers and hoping no one would spot him. But of course, in his brightly-coloured woollen jumper, _everyone_ had noticed him, including Simmons.

There had been some kind of delay with the class before and so rather than being able to take their seats straight away they had been forced to stand and wait in the corridor. Really, then, it started with a technical difficulty; a lab signup sheet wasn't loading properly, or the system was down, or something. So, stuck waiting outside, he remembered his promise to himself that he would be brave, would at least _try_ to make friends after the loneliness of the first few months at the Academy. He was so nervous about being part of a new class again, being around new people, but he knew he needed to try something.

She watched as he shuffled over, stupid sweater and all, and even though she had promised herself she'd spend more time making deeper friendships rather than the passing acquaintances she'd known so far at the Academy (they gave her more time to focus on her work, at least), she still wanted to bolt. But there was nowhere to go, no way to avoid embarrassing herself in front of this boy in the ridiculous sweater.

He approached and she smiled shyly and they introduced themselves, because thank God both were used to the standard introductions and initial small talk by now. They were both nervous however, and somehow managed to stutter and speak over each other.

"_I'm Leo Fitz." / "I'm Jemma Simmons."_

"_Are you from England?" / "Wait is that a Scottish accent?"_

"_Yes, it is. It's been a bit tough being so far from home." / "Yes I am. It's been lovely moving to America but I do get a bit homesick. "_

"_And especially being so much younger than everyone else here." / "What with still being a lot younger than other students"_

"_I'm only 18," / "I'm just 18 you see."_

"_And it's my younger sister I miss really, she's only 16." / "And even more so because my younger sisters are only 16 and 11."_

"_My older brothers, a bit less so. I get on well enough with the youngest one I suppose, he's 23." / "I pretend I don't miss my older brother because he's such a nightmare, but really I do. He's 23 so has always bossed me around."_

The both paused for breath and stared at each other for a moment, open-mouthed and feeling a funny mixture of surprise and amusement.

"I think we might have a few things in common," she joked and he couldn't help but laugh along with her. The coincidences were shocking at first, but something to which they were wholly accustomed to by now; the fact that their mothers were both called Jane, that he had a second cousin somewhere called Gemma, and her grandfather had been Leo, (although not Leopold), now only served to surprise others and to make for a good story.

Of course, however, when pressed to tell the rest of their story, it was far easier to say that they simply 'got chatting' outside of class one day.

It was also easier than saying that it really started years before. One day, when sat together in the dining hall they discovered that they had both been offered places at an Oxford University-run summer school for gifted young people when they were eleven. Both had gone to stay with relatives nearby to attend the school and both had been taught by the same professor. Simmons attended his morning classes, while Fitz made up the numbers of the afternoon group. They had even both stood awkwardly at the sidelines of the party on the final day, clutching tightly onto cans of Coke and feeling out of place in a room full of fifteen and sixteen year olds. Somehow, though, their paths never crossed.

The odds of all of this were incredibly tiny, but then, Jemma had acknowledged many times by now, so were the odds of finding someone she connected with so well as she did with Fitz.

It was easier to talk about classroom introductions than to say that she had never expected to find someone who could finish her sentences, sometimes before she'd even finished her thoughts. Someone who knew that sometimes she got homesick, or tunnel vision when it came to her experiments, and that she could be a nightmare when she suffered from either, holing herself up in her room or in the lab, working and refusing to eat or sleep until she emerged a few days later, haggard and tired and overwrought. Someone who knew how to handle these moods, someone who _wanted_ to handle them. Talking about meeting at Academy lectures was a hundred times easier than explaining that it all started again, every time he kept one of her deepest secrets, or saved a sentimental gift or letter, even though he was the least sentimental person she knew.

For Fitz, it was hard to admit that he had thought of himself as cold and empty before meeting Jemma. It wasn't that he thought he was unaffectionate (though some might accuse him of it) or that he did not want to love and be loved, but that he simply did not know _how_ to go about it all. He had thought that, thanks to lacking in friendship for as long as he had, he had frozen from the inside out as he waited for someone to come along and change everything. In fact, once he met Simmons, once they grew close, he had feared for a time that he might melt entirely, might fade away beneath the glare of light from within her. She had been more confident than him when they met, happier in who she was, and she had been (remained to this day) kind and sweet, and people had been drawn to her like a moth to a flame. It was perhaps because she had always been so much younger than the people she stood amongst, however, that they always came to her for the light, but rarely stayed long enough to get warm. But he, thinking he had been cold and desperate for heat, well he had jumped right in and risked being singed. He used to wonder how he hadn't burnt himself to come so close. He used to ask himself, perhaps, if even setting his wings alight would have caused him to stop and turn away. (It wouldn't have).

But in spite of all of this, it remained easier to insist that "yes, we met at the Academy, it was all very boring," than it was to admit that Jemma did not feed off his intellect and his ingenuity, but rather _fed_ it. It was far harder to explain that after he met Jemma, he discovered that humans were _meant_ to light up and shine, that his heart had not been frozen and empty after all, but warm and full to the brim with a kindling just waiting to be set alight. With the spark she provided he became content to shine along with her.

Because the truth was, their story really did begin with an awkward conversation in a dimly lit corridor at the Academy, but it was so much more than an ugly sweater or choosing a seat beside the other in class. Instead, it was about coaching each other through the sleepless nights, reminding each other to love themselves for who they were, or holding up the umbrella when the rains came down and sharing the little space underneath so that they both got their feet wet together.

It was unspoken promises that they would _always_ be the other's first choice, that one would always open their door to the other at their hour of greatest need, that if the call to battle ever came they would stand beside each other against the rest of the world. It was an assurance that when one was too old to remember the other's face, they would meet over and over again for the very first time. And, above all, it was a solemn, unwritten oath that even though they had already seen the worst and the best the other had to offer, they would always choose to take both together.

It was easier too, not to explain that, a few years after that awkward first conversation and that garish woollen jumper, it started all over again, with a pair of bumped noses and a hesitant kiss. Because that was another story for another day, and it was probably a story that contravened every SHIELD regulation in the book.

"Wow, guys, I have to say," Skye grumbled, looking for all the world like a child who had just had their favourite toy taken away, "I'm disappointed. I expected more."

"If you must know," Simmons sighed as she and Fitz rose, depositing their dishes in the dishwasher, "Fitz _was_ wearing the world's ugliest jumper that day," she said as the two made to leave.

Skye laughed as she listened to them bickering all the way down to the lab.

"Oh _God_ would you leave it with the sweater already? Just forget about it, it was almost seven years ago!"

"_No one_ could forget about that jumper, Fitz! It was abhorrent."

"You know what I don't care what you think. I really liked that jumper and I'm sorry it wouldn't fit in my bag so I could wear it here."

"Well, _you_ know what Fitz? So am I. I'm sorry too."

"Really?" Fitz's voice was full of foolish hope and belief.

"Yes, I'd never tire of hearing four other people tell you how ridiculous you look in it."

"God I hate you."

"Hate you more."


End file.
